East Timor: Lisbon minister pledges continued aid beyond end of UN
mandate

Dili, Nov. 10 (Lusa) - Senior Portuguese minister Nuno Morais Sarmento
held talks with President Xanana Gusmão of East Timor Monday, reaffirming
Lisbon's commitment to continue aiding Dili through broad cooperation
programs after the end of the UN mission next May.

After the meeting, Gusmão said he had presented Dili's "preoccupations
over security and international relations", asking Portugal to maintain
"the commitment it has demonstrated up to now".

Morais Sarmento, minister to the presidency of the council of
ministers, said Portugal was ready to colaborate in assuring "security and
guaranteeing the future of East Timor".

Both leaders underlined that the framework for extended aid in the
security field after the end of the UN mission on May 20 depended on
negotiations between Dili, the United Nations and countries, like
Portugal, that contribute to the current UN peacekeeping and police
forces.

Lisbon's commitments to Dili would be "integrally kept, regardless of
their cost to the budget", Morais Sarmento pledged at the start Sunday of
his visit to East Timor, referring to Portugal's belt-tightening policies
amid an economic downturn.

Officials said Morais Sarmento would use his four-day stay primarily to
discuss current programs aimed to reintroduce and promote the use of
Portuguese, one of East Timor's official languages.

Among other initiatives in Dili, the minister, who oversees the media
portfolio in Lisbon, will attend the inauguration of a television studio
offered by Portugal's state RTP television to its East Timorese
counterpart.

Gusmão acknowledged that after 24 years of Indonesian occupation there
was "some resistance" to the adoption of Portuguese as an official
language by those who do not speak it, a majority of the population.

The president stressed, however, that the language was part of East
Timor's "identity" and that had it not been for Portuguese colonial rule
the country would today be part of Indonesia rather than an independent
state.

"It's a matter of insistence and perseverance on that which is best for
us", Gusmão said of ongoing efforts to teach and promote the use of
Portuguese, a major focus of aid from Lisbon.

Among other initiatives, Alkatiri and Morais Sarmento attended the
inauguration in Dili of a new TV studio donated by Portugal's state RTP
television.

The ceremony was accompanied by the signing of a broad cooperation
agreement between the two countries' public TV and radio broadcasters,
providing Dili some USD 150,000 in additional aid.

Morais Sarmento, Lisbon's minister to the presidency of the council of
ministers and senior media official, told Lusa he had also agreed with
Alkatiri on a Portuguese-financed project to provide running water on the
outer island of Atauro.

He said the euros 1 million project, to begin in January, would supply
water to more than half the 9,000 people of Atauro, one of East Timor's
poorest regions, by the end of next year.

Officials also signed an agreement Tuesday for Lisbon to provide varied
"technical aid" to Dili's official gazette, the "Jornal da República", to
make it fully autonomous.

Morais Sarmento, who ends a four-day visit Wednesday, praised "the
advances and progress" observed in East Timor during his stay.

East Timor: Portuguese UN battalion taking
school materials to needy children

Vila Real, Portugal, Nov. 11 (Lusa) - The last Portuguese battlion
rotating into UN peacekeeping duties in East Timor will go armed, in part,
with school materials to distribute among the country's children.

Businesses and schools in the northern cities of Vila Real and Viseu
presented the more than 500-strong battalion, dubbed Agrupamento Hotel,
with a load of pencils, erasers, notebooks and other school materials on
Monday.

East Timor's ambassador to Portugal, Pascolea Barreto, who attended the
ceremony in Vila Real, applauded the symbolic initiative, saying it would
"strengthen the bonds between the two peoples".

Noting that Portuguese is a language of instruction through the fourth
grade in East Timor, Barreto said she hoped that all her people would
speak the language "within 10 years or so".

The relief battalion, which heads to East Timor in January, will be the
last Portuguese contingent to serve as UN peacekeepers prior to the
scheduled end of the UN mission in June.